After the tsunami--facing the public health challenges.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Jennifer Leaning.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Given the need for public health professionals well trained in emergency preparedness and response, students in public health programs require ample practical training to prepare them for careers in public health practice. The Harvard School of Public Health Center for Public Health Preparedness has been instrumental in the creation and implementation of a course entitled, "Bioterrorism: Public Health Preparedness and Response." This course features lectures on specific applications of public health practice in emergency preparedness and response. In addition, it provides students the opportunity to operationalize and apply their knowledge during an interactive tabletop exercise. In light of their university affiliations and expertise in providing preparedness training, other Academic Centers for Public Health Preparedness have the opportunity to be instrumental in providing similar training to graduate students of public health.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
This article examines the recent revision of the Sphere Minimum Standards in disaster response relating to food security, nutrition and food aid. It describes how the revision attempted to incorporate the principles of the Humanitarian Charter, as well as relevant human rights principles and values into the Sphere Minimum Standards. The initial aim of the revision was to ensure that the Sphere Minimum Standards better reflected the principles embodied in the Humanitarian Charter. This was later broadened to ensure that key legal standards and principles from human rights and humanitarian law were considered and also incorporated, in part to fill the "protection gap" within the existing standards. In relation to the food security, nutrition and food aid standards, it was agreed by participants in the process that the human right to adequate food and freedom from hunger should be incorporated. In relation to more general principles underlying the Humanitarian Charter, itself drawn largely from human rights and humanitarian law, it was agreed that there was a need to strengthen "protection" elements within the standards and a need to incorporate the basic principles of the right to life with dignity, non-discrimination, impartiality and participation, as well as to explore the relevance of the concept of the progressive realisation of the right to food. The questions raised in linking rights to operational standards required thought, on the one hand, about whether the technical standards reflected a deep understanding of the values expressed within the legal instruments, and whether the existing standards were adequate in relation to those legal rights. On the other hand, it also required reflection on how operational standards like Sphere could give concrete content to human rights, such as the right to food and the right to be free from hunger. However, there remain challenges in examining what a rights-based approach will mean in terms of the role of humanitarian agencies as duty-bearers of rights, given that the primary responsibility rests with state governments. It will also require reflection on the modes and mechanisms of accountability that are brought to bear in ensuring the implementation of the Minimum Standards.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
This article presents an introduction to the causes and characteristics of armed conflicts. It reviews some of the key humanitarian crises that broke new ground in terms of the technologies and practices that developed at the field level in response to each new complex emergency, with particular focus on the health sector. It introduces the concept of humanitarian governance as a framework for addressing the consequences and implications of the failure of worldwide governance for the protection of civilians in armed conflict. Here, we term humanitarian governance to include the use of international humanitarian law and human rights instruments to govern the behaviour of state and non-state organisations in conflict zones in a way that protects the lives and livelihoods of affected populations. We note, however, that terrorist concerns appear to be replacing humanitarian logic in the network of worldwide governance.